Brahms: Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114
Like Mozart and Schubert before him and Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Poulenc and Nielsen after, Brahms came to the clarinet late in life, having intended to put down his pen after the triumph of the great G major Viola Quintet, Op. 111. It was only upon hearing the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld — in a performance of works by Mozart and Weber — that Brahms was inspired to come out of retirement expressly to write for the clarinet. It is therefore to Mühlfeld that we owe those crowning masterpieces from Brahms’ twilight years, the glowing embers of his mature genius: not just the four sublime clarinet works (the present Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op. 114, the Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115, and two Sonatas, Op. 120), but the treasured piano music, Chorale Preludes and Four Serious Songs written in those years as well.
Written in 1891 (exactly a century after Mozart’s peerless Clarinet Concerto and premature death weeks thereafter), the Clarinet Trio in A minor was the first fruit born of Brahms’ late love affair with the clarinet, but its tender cello writing betrays Brahms’ deep affection for that instrument as well, lover as he was of dark timbres. In the Clarinet Trio’s outer movements, Brahms entrusted all of the initial statements of the main themes to the cello at the hands of Robert Hausmann (a member of the Joachim Quartet and the dedicatee of Brahms’ F major Cello Sonata), who premiered the work alongside Mühlfeld and the composer at the piano. For its part, Brahms’ beloved “Fräulein Klarinette” shimmers in its singing clarion register, while other times crooning in the smoky chalumeau. It is perhaps this vocal manipulation of register and texture as the instruments sing to each other that prompted one contemporary scholar to note, “It is as though the instruments were in love with each other.”
The Trio is remarkably concise compared to the expansive scale of the Clarinet Quintet with which it shared the program for their premiere in December 1891, but no less expressive. There is, however, something about the reserved treatment of voices that seems to reflect the work’s tight proportions; whereas the Quintet often rises to symphonic tutti sonorities, the Trio’s instruments retain their individual identities through their inherent acoustical differences and their presentation in canon or in frequent solo passages. The piece opens with one such solo, a rising, searching theme that begins in the cello alone before the clarinet’s echo. As the music seems to try a couple of times to begin its course, the meditative introduction studies half-step relationships that forecast the movement’s conclusion in a sunlit A major. First, however, there is the brooding pith of the movement, driven by the motivic saturation of the cello’s pained opening and punctuated by fleeting oases of calm in between. The heartfelt lyricism of the Adagio movement best captures the reflective quality that permeates Brahms’ late masterpieces: it is generous and loving, but not without a tinge of melancholy. The curious ländler that follows feels endearingly out of place; one might expect a fleet-footed scherzo at this point in the form, but instead Brahms gifts us an unhurried Andante grazioso built on a long-breathed clarinet theme. Moreover, the graceful melody and its hint of Viennese lilt seem to aspire to a waltz, but the strummed cello and absent dance accompaniment suggest the outdoors, not a ballroom. Later on, the music shirks its guise of grace and commits whole-heartedly to the stamping, provincial spirit that had been there all along. A swashbuckling finale reinstates the stormy A minor of the first movement and drives the piece to a thundering conclusion.
© Graeme Steele Johnson for The Graduate Center, CUNY
Like Mozart and Schubert before him and Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Poulenc and Nielsen after, Brahms came to the clarinet late in life, having intended to put down his pen after the triumph of the great G major Viola Quintet, Op. 111. It was only upon hearing the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld — in a performance of works by Mozart and Weber — that Brahms was inspired to come out of retirement expressly to write for the clarinet. It is therefore to Mühlfeld that we owe those crowning masterpieces from Brahms’ twilight years, the glowing embers of his mature genius: not just the four sublime clarinet works (the present Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op. 114, the Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115, and two Sonatas, Op. 120), but the treasured piano music, Chorale Preludes and Four Serious Songs written in those years as well.
Written in 1891 (exactly a century after Mozart’s peerless Clarinet Concerto and premature death weeks thereafter), the Clarinet Trio in A minor was the first fruit born of Brahms’ late love affair with the clarinet, but its tender cello writing betrays Brahms’ deep affection for that instrument as well, lover as he was of dark timbres. In the Clarinet Trio’s outer movements, Brahms entrusted all of the initial statements of the main themes to the cello at the hands of Robert Hausmann (a member of the Joachim Quartet and the dedicatee of Brahms’ F major Cello Sonata), who premiered the work alongside Mühlfeld and the composer at the piano. For its part, Brahms’ beloved “Fräulein Klarinette” shimmers in its singing clarion register, while other times crooning in the smoky chalumeau. It is perhaps this vocal manipulation of register and texture as the instruments sing to each other that prompted one contemporary scholar to note, “It is as though the instruments were in love with each other.”
The Trio is remarkably concise compared to the expansive scale of the Clarinet Quintet with which it shared the program for their premiere in December 1891, but no less expressive. There is, however, something about the reserved treatment of voices that seems to reflect the work’s tight proportions; whereas the Quintet often rises to symphonic tutti sonorities, the Trio’s instruments retain their individual identities through their inherent acoustical differences and their presentation in canon or in frequent solo passages. The piece opens with one such solo, a rising, searching theme that begins in the cello alone before the clarinet’s echo. As the music seems to try a couple of times to begin its course, the meditative introduction studies half-step relationships that forecast the movement’s conclusion in a sunlit A major. First, however, there is the brooding pith of the movement, driven by the motivic saturation of the cello’s pained opening and punctuated by fleeting oases of calm in between. The heartfelt lyricism of the Adagio movement best captures the reflective quality that permeates Brahms’ late masterpieces: it is generous and loving, but not without a tinge of melancholy. The curious ländler that follows feels endearingly out of place; one might expect a fleet-footed scherzo at this point in the form, but instead Brahms gifts us an unhurried Andante grazioso built on a long-breathed clarinet theme. Moreover, the graceful melody and its hint of Viennese lilt seem to aspire to a waltz, but the strummed cello and absent dance accompaniment suggest the outdoors, not a ballroom. Later on, the music shirks its guise of grace and commits whole-heartedly to the stamping, provincial spirit that had been there all along. A swashbuckling finale reinstates the stormy A minor of the first movement and drives the piece to a thundering conclusion.
© Graeme Steele Johnson for The Graduate Center, CUNY